"Have you lunched, Captain Warren?"

"No, come to think of it, I ain't. I've been kind of busy this forenoon,
and a little thing like dinner--luncheon, I mean--slipped my mind.
Though 'tain't often I have those slips, I'm free to say. Ho! ho!
Abbie--she's my second cousin, my housekeeper--says I'm an unsartin
critter, but there's two things about me she can always count on, one's
that my clothes have always got a button loose somewheres, and t'other's
my appetite."

He laughed, and Sylvester laughed with him.

"Well," observed the lawyer, "I'm not sure that I couldn't qualify on
both of those counts. At any rate I'm sure of my appetite. I had a lunch
engagement with an acquaintance of mine, but he hasn't appeared, so you
must take his place. We'll lunch together."

"Well, now, I'd like to fust-rate, and it's real kind of you, Mr.
Sylvester; but I don't know's I'd better. Your friend may heave in
sight, after all, and I'd be in the way."

"Not a bit of it. And I said 'acquaintance,' not 'friend.' Of course you
will! You must. We can talk business while we're eating, if you like."

"All right. And I'm ever so much obliged to you. Is there an eatin'
house near here?"

"Oh, we'll eat right here at the club. Come."